Dead Hearts
by rddrgn
Summary: AU in which Jacob has imprinted on Bella. She leaves Edward and the Cullens to join the wolves but just when everything seems too hopeless and confusing for the Cullens a new pack of vampires wander into town with some unique abilities of their own. Are they just what the Cullens need or are they as dangerous as they seem?
1. Chapter 1

Edward:

It finally happened.

The one thing I feared the most but knew was inevitable.

Bella...had left me.

It had finally dawned on her the truth that I had been preaching since our meeting: I was unworthy of her love; she couldn't love the monster I was.

No matter how many times she fold me I wasn't a monster-it isn't me, it's her-I'm too good, the truth laughed in my face as if I were a joke. She thinks I'm a monster...and Jacob isn't.

It was just after the New Born attack when Jacob had finally admitted his own truth. He had imprinted on Bella not too long ago and intended on marrying her once she came to her senses. Something that didn't take too long for her to do.

We were standing in the very field that had once been the grave of over 100 new boens. She had been biting her bottom lip which was the universal signal that she had something on her mind, in addition to that she didn't meet my eyes which meant it was bad. I tried to read her mind and prayed the Heavens would take pity on me and allow me peak into that brain of hers...but there was no such luck.

She looked at her feet and when I begged her to look me in the eyes her brown ones only reached my neck. At that point only our middle and ring fingers were linked...but it didn't take long for her to pull that away from me too.

She said I was too good for this..too perfect. I didn't deserve to be treated the way she treated me. She said she didn't want to become one of those new borns-she didn't want to be a monster like them. But I knew she meant like me. She said she wanted a long happy life with a bunch of shaggy haired childred...and I knew then with who.

I was silent and still on the outside but underneath I was a vulnerable mess twisting in agony. Jane's power was nothing compared to the..betrayl...rejection...With each word that left her mouth it was another wound shredding my heart. Vampires can't bleed, that means we can't heal.

She left me there standing in the open cold and left me to watch her walk away into the woods where I knew he waited. I knew he had been following us since we left my home. I should have guessed this would happen when she cried saying goodbye to my family. Why didn't Alice tell me?

Time zipped by as I let my darkness fold over me. I stood in the same position and supposed it may have been three weeks and four days that I waited unmoving. I wanted to turn to stone...to petrify and to never move or feel or think again. But then I heard Alice's thoughts screaming for me while Carlisle screamed aloud.

_Edward you must come home! If only you could see what Esme is going through...You have to come home please...Edward...I'm so sorry...I-I...I didn't think she would..._

I knew why Alice said she and not _Bella_. The very thought of her name had me reverting back to my three week shell and even deeper to..I don't know where but very very far away. That far away place was one reason I did not want to go back. No one could hide their thoughts from me-no one but her-and everyone of them would have burning memories of her and what used to be. It would feel like having every particle of skin pulled from my bones.

Her absense.

No that would be a better fate then what actually awaited me.

As they called I knew I should have run. I wanted to. But without her I was nothing. I could think but I could not answer. I could remember but I couldn't forget. It was then that I realized the biggest thing that was missing now. It was my will...my will to do _anything._ When I had been under the impression she was dead I was driven by my promise to join her but what now? There was no way I could follow her where she had gone.

Unless...was there still the option of Heaven for someone like me? Could Carlisle be right? Could I find happiness in something after?

_Edward no! We are coming I know where you are! Please! Don't move!_

I didn't know what she was talking about.

What she had seen I was unsure, she was still too far away.

I enjoyed the distance. I wanted the others, everyone else, to be too far away like she was. She wasn't gone...just...out of reach. Too far for me to follow. She was somewhere warm and welcoming. I place I would never belong. It was then that Carlisle and Alice appeared, standing with arms extended at their sides as if to catch me should I choose to run. What they didn't know was that even if I wanted to I couldn't move on my own.

I couldn't do a thing.


	2. Chapter 2

Rosalie:

I had been laughing.

At something Emmett had said of course.

At that same time Carlisle had been sitting with his hand in Esme's as they glanced at each other with those happy smiles that said, "Look at them. That's who we raised." I remember that smile because it's not very often that I get to see it, that they exchange it. And then on the stairs Jasper and Alice sat beside each other as she tried to teach him a new hand game she had remembered she played when she was a lot younger. It was a very funny thing because Alice couldn't remember a thing about her past but that hand game and even that was a little funny so as she tried to teach him she was in the process of teaching herself. And while I stood with Emmett I pretended to try and break free from his strong arms although it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

Everyone was smiling.

Happy.

Grateful to be alive.

That is until Alice gasped.

Like tiny feathers bursting into the air at the drop of a hammer the playfull, joyfull mood in the room vanished and was replaced by anxiety and expectation. We all waited for Alice to come to. And when she did it was evident in big borning black and white letters: a great tragedy had occured.

Jasper was the first to react.

His hands that had been resting beneath hers suddenly clamped on her face, gently, as he asked, "Alice. What's wrong?"

She didn't answer.

Her eyes were unfocused and forward as if she were trying to register what had occured, as if she were searching for a new future that was unobtainable. It was just the look on her face, just the look, that told us we didn't want to know what she knew. We didn't want to see what she had seen. Suddenly her shocked expression began to crack and crinkle into one of heartbreak and sadness and then, as if it couldn't get worse, she begant to sob. The sound of her dry cries filled me with such confusion and I watched as she searched for tears that wouldn't come. I felt a sudden wave of calm fill me and the atmosphere and at that I looked at Emmett and leaned in as he wrapped his big arms around me tight.

"It's Bella...," Alice finally whispered, holding onto Jasper's arms that encircled her like a protective belt, "She disappeared."

Her statement hung in the air like the artificial calm that didn't belong in the situation. Disappeared? I wondered what that could mean and as the possibilities raced through my brain I felt a saddness I didn't expect flow into me. Before I had almost wanted Edward to lose control so he could see I was right, so they could all see I was right, but after all that had happened. With James, the birthday party, Edward's almost suicide, the newborn attack-so much had happened! I had finally 'warmed up to her' and I was actually devistated.

Carlisle was the first to react," Edward didn't.."

"No!" she cried out, standing to her feet and forcing Jasper to follow. Poor Jasper seemed trapped in his own emotion and the ones we threw back at him, he seemed as though he were drowning, "He didn't do anything! It's her! She...She left him! She left us."

Esme's voice had a quiver in it as she shook her head, "No! But Alice...just before they left. They were more in love than we had ever seen!"

Carlisle took her into his arms as she continued to protest, "Are you certain?"

"Yes!" Alice screamed at the top of her lungs, her body shaking despire Jasper trying to hold her together, "I saw! I saw her say 'Goodbye' to him! I saw her walk into the oblivian and now I can't see _anything!_"

"No!" the word jumped out of my throat before I had time to register what she had said, "You are WRONG. You made a MISTAKE, Alice. She would NEVER do this to him. She loves Edward too much. For Christsakes he nearly killed himself because he thought she was dead! And us! What about us?!"

She was silent and Emmett gave a little whimper of, "Babe?"

"We all put out NECKS on the line for that stupid girl! How many times as she BEGGED us to make her apart of this family! All of us! We put it to a vote!" I screamed and tried to justify but each time I made a point Alice's eyes screamed back at me that she's gone. Just when I had given her a chance, "She can't be so selfish! She can't do this to him! She can't do this to us!"

"Rosalie...," Emmett said my name with more authority as if he were trying to get my attention but all I could see in my mind was the color red that should be her blood.

"No!" I shouted, pulling his arms in front of me as I stepped forward to her to demand, "Where are they?!"

"Rosalie No!" Alice screamed suddenly, snaking away from behind Jasper's protection to grab my arms tightly, "No Rosalie! Don't do it! Just let it go! PLEASE! Let it go!"

"How can I let it go!? How can you just stand there when she's BREAKING HIS HEART!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, trying to pull my arms away from her solid grip. I wanted to bite her arms off and throw them away. I wanted to break her into pieces. But the pained expression in her dry eyes that saw what I wanted to deny reminded me that she was Alice. Just poor sweet Alice that was going through her own blind furry. She had welcomed her with open arms. She had wanted this so bad for them.

"Rosalie," Carlisle said my name with the fatherly authority we had given him but he had never used, "We must sit and wait for Edward to come home. Until then we must calm do-"

A growl escaped my throat that burned for her blood. Everyone stepped back, everyone but Emmett. He grabbed me by my elbows and began to pull me against my will as he whispered, "Babe. Come on, let's go. Let's go home. Come on."

Before I even made it through the threshold of our house I exploded in his arms, "HOW COULD SHE!? I FINALLY LET HER IN! I FINALLY TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THIS IS WHAT SHE DOES! I KNEW SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN TRUSTED! SHE'S A HUMAN A STUPID NO GOOD UGLY PATHETIC WEAK HUMAN! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME TRUST HER?! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME THINK THIS COULD WORK?! WHY?! If I had up more of a fight! If I had protested more you would've listened to me! I could prevented this If I just didn't give up!...If I didn't give up..."

"Babe."

It was then that I realized I had been slamming my fists against his chest. Poor Emmett. My Emmett...recieving the worst end of my furry, always with a smile. He stroked the side of my face and made me go weak into his arms as he kissed my hair and I cried, "Emmy-Bear."

"You couldn't have done anything, it isn't your fault. The only thing protesting would have done is made you miss out on even more good times than you already did. I know you, Rose. Hating her was killing you and hating her still will only hurt you more. Edward is a tough guy, he doesn't need you to go and beat up the girl that broke his heart. Bella made a decision, a choice, and we have to respect it. Even if we don't agree, " he explained, the whole time carrying me to the bed and kissing at my head. Sometimes it was very easy to forget how deep and insightful he could be beneath his rough and tough and joyfull exterior. Sometimes I forget how deep and insightfull he could be underneath that rough and joyfull exterior.

I held onto his neck as he laid us down onto the bed we only used on certain occasions. She laid on top of me with his face rested on my chest so I could run my fingers through his soft dakr hair, the only thing that calmed me when I was in my moods. When I had relaxed, relaxed enough to think I realized deep down the true fear that hit me. If Bella could leave Edward...Emmett could leave me too. I recalled a conversaton they had once in which they compared themselves to each other and when Emmett had recounted the story of his fight with the bear he had lost. I had loved him as a human and he had loved me as a human too, even if it was only for a few seconds. Emmett had often told me if we could do it they could do it too. But if they couldn't do it...did that mean we couldn't either.

"What are you thinking about now?" he asked, lifting his face up and resting his chin between my breasts.

I felt as though I would cry as I whispered in my broken voice, "Don't leave me." He gave me a smile, my smile-the only smile that could light up the world-as he replied, "Now why would I go and do something stupid like that?"


End file.
